Sesame Street: What’s Missing? A Gay Character

Dear Sesame Street,

Hearty congratulations on your Divorce Toolkit. As an adult child of divorced parents, your videos of Abby dealing with her “big feelings” struck a nerve – and touched my heart. It reminds me of the massive response to Sesame Street’s I Love My Hair video from back in 2010, where a little brown muppet sang the praises of her natural hair.

Your show is expert at teaching kids complex issues in such a sensitive way that you manage to also tweak the hearts of us adults. I love you Sesame Street.

But now let’s get on with things. It’s time to queer up. The absence of any LGBT content on your show is becoming a glaringly obvious omission, and it’s time to change that. We know of course what some might say: Queerness and preschoolers do not mix. It’s too controversial. But that’s actually false because THIS is the reality:

President Barack Obama made history when he mentioned Stonewall and gay rights in his inaugural speech last month. Then, an 11-year old trans kid, Sadie, made an Internet splash when she wrote to Obama to say: ‘don’t forget us trans folks!’ Which brings me to point #2.

This is what you are Sesame Street, you are the anti-Disney Princess – a much needed alternative in a Princess-obsessed preschool world. How many parents cheered when Justice Sonia Sotomayortold Abby Cadabby that being a princess in not a career? So, Sesame Street, how come Disney has aired a family with lesbian moms and you haven’t?(Though I am convinced heads rolled at Disney after that one snuck by the execs, I have no proof.)

5. Sesame Street’s strength has always been diversity, and it always will be.

If you have a muppet who is food insecure, and another one who is HIV positive, you can have character(s) that fall somewhere in the LGBTTQ spectrum. As I said earlier, at this point identifiably queer characters are so blatantly missing from your show, you need to make up for lost time.

1. Abby is going through a lot of changes because of her parents’ divorce. The obvious question is: how come Abby’s parents got a divorce? Does daddy love another man? Has mommy decided she wants to live with another mommy?

2. You can always come up with a new muppet who is a trans kid, or whose parents are queer. But if you want to develop an existing muppet: I think Rosita is a strong candidate for a trans muppet – one who could go either way as a kid who is already living MTF or is an FTM wanting to come out. Also, according Muppet.wikia.com, Zoe’s mom has never appeared on the show – but she has (at least one) dad. Could we just give her another one?